Re: [Nmh-workers] "-help" arguments

[David Levine]

Norm wrote:

> I observe that, ignoring all lines not beginning with exactly two ' '
> characters, the outputs of nmh's commands' -help, seem to be extremely
> regular and simple.

Yes, because they're generated from the switch definitions in the code
of each program.

> I wonder if, for 1.7, that simple syntax and semantics could be guaranteed?
> That way, it would be possible for *proc commands to be always uptodate.

I'm not sure how.  For example, if a new switch is added, its mere
existence wouldn't be enough to let a *proc writer know whether or
how to use it.  It might help if a switch is removed, but that's
happened how many times in the history of MH and nmh?  And, the
*proc writer would likely have to do more than just notice that it
was removed.

> This would probably require no code changes -- just a line or three in the
> mh-profile man page.

But, it would add an interface that we would have to preserve.
I'm against doing that unless there's a benefit.  In this case, I
don't think there is one.  *proc's just aren't that well defined
(and I don't think this is a good place to start/continue), so the
writer sometimes has to know more than what's explicit in the
documentation already.

David